Prologue
October 4, 1974, 5:36 pm
Smoke curled from the end of his cigarette. He took a drag and blew it out. The smell of his sin was swept away by the light autumn breeze, as if it had never been. Julie was always on him to quit.
Think about me. The girls. Your health. What would we do if something were to happen to you?
She’d have to go get a job, that’s what.
He ground the smoldering butt into the dirt with the steel toe of his boot and pushed all thoughts of his wife from his mind. She didn’t belong here. This was his place. His time. He settled his back against the brick wall, still warm from the afternoon sun, and peered out from between the shrubs at the girl.
She was a pretty thing. Maybe half his age, but still… legal. She was tall, with eyes the same shade of deep blue as the glimmering waters of Lake Washington. Today, her dark hair was pulled back in a ponytail. But he liked it better when it was free. Every night before bed the girl brushed it out to a glossy luster, until it cascaded past her shoulders and fell halfway down her back. He could almost feel the silky strands running through his calloused fingers.
He licked his lips and pulled a small notebook from his canvas jacket. The pencil he withdrew from his pocket was almost worn down to the stub. Opening to the last page, he touched the lead tip to his tongue and scribbled the date.
Friday, October 4 1974: 5:43 pm. Red sweater. Ponytail. Kitchen window open. Bedroom window…
From here he had an unobstructed view of the kitchen window and the one that opened onto the tiny bedroom at the back. He licked his pencil again.
Bedroom window open, he scribbled.
A chilly wind blasted off the lake and ruffled his dark hair. Closing his notebook, he stuffed it back inside his pocket behind the forbidden pack of smokes. Shadows from the surrounding trees stretched long across the grass. The golden leaves from a maple rattled in the breeze. The sun was setting. Twilight wasn’t far behind.
Time to go.
There’d be hell to pay if he was late and afterwards, well, afterwards he would have to drive Jocelyn to swim practice. She’d yammer the whole way there about something or other he didn’t give a damn about. And then there was the garbage, and the dog, and the million other things that Julie thought he ought to be doing. Things that she could do if she weren’t so damned lazy.
No. He would not waste a single second thinking about anything other than the girl. A gust of wind blew across the field that separated her window from the bushes where he stood. He heard music coming from her window. The radio was playing Hey Jude.
Everyone acted as if the Beatles were the second coming. But Christ, he’d take Credence Clearwater Revival any day. Still, he strained his ears to hear if she might be singing along. She did that sometimes, when she thought nobody was around to hear.
Golden light slanted through the open kitchen window; her beauty struck him. He imagined himself there, with her, inside the cozy apartment that she kept as neat as a pin.
He closed his eyes, and he was standing behind her, pressed against her willowy frame. Her hair smelled like the lilac shampoo she kept beside the bathtub. He’d slide his hands up her rib cage until they cupped her firm breasts. He’d sway to the beat as he sang along in his pleasing tenor. She’d laugh. Twirl around, and they’d dance, right there in the kitchen.
“You’re such a romantic,” she’d say.
He’d dip her, and she’d expose that lovely long white throat of hers and…
Caught up in the moment, he felt himself stir as he imagined the feel of her skin beneath his hands. The thrumming of her pulse…
He opened his eyes. A shadow crossed the room behind her, and the spell was broken. A burst of anger filled his chest. She wasn’t alone. The boyfriend was there with her.
Smart mouthed little rich boy. Father was a lawyer. Fancy car. Fancy clothes. The kid had the whole world handed to him.
The boyfriend put his hands on her shoulders and turned her around—hands that had never seen a hard day’s work in his life. He leaned toward her and they kissed.
Damn him. Damn him for ruining this one perfect moment.
His stomach roiled as he tore his gaze away from the two lovebirds locked in an embrace.
The college boy may think she belonged to him, but soon the smart-mouthed little asshole would find out that he was wrong.
And once he’d placed his hands on the girl, she would never be the same.
Chapter 1
December 22, 1987, 4:52 pm
Elizabeth Holt held her breath as the jury filed into the courtroom for the final time. This was always the hardest part of the trial—the point at which she second-guessed herself. All the decisions she’d made, all the arguments she presented, culminated in this moment.
The first few jurors trudged in. Heads-down. Eyes averted. Their expressions as bleak as a December day, and Elizabeth’s stomach dropped.
She’d lost them in the scientific data. DNA evidence still sounded like science fiction to many jurors. They didn’t understand how it worked; like fingerprints, it could be used to definitively link a suspect to a crime scene. All the hours she’d spent coaching the expert witness were wasted. Like so many of his kind, he got caught up in the details of the science, allowing jargon to creep into his testimony as the jury’s eyes glazed over. Her boss had warned her, she hadn’t listened, and now she feared it was all going to come crashing down in a not guilty verdict, allowing a predator to go free.
But then a female juror entered the room—the high school teacher from Ballard. Middle-aged. Curly hair shot through with gray. Kind face. Her furtive gaze cut across the courtroom and settled on Elizabeth for a second. Maybe two. Long enough for a small burst of hope to flicker inside Elizabeth’s chest.
“That’s a good sign, isn’t it?” David Emmerson whispered close to Elizabeth’s ear “We’ve won.”
“We haven’t won anything yet,” she cautioned him with a stern look.
New to the prosecutor’s office, Emmerson had sat second chair for the trial. A full five years Elizabeth’s junior, he was bright and eager—a little too eager, if you asked her. Winning was too closely aligned with his over inflated ego.
Ignoring David, Elizabeth expelled her breath silently, and willed herself to wait as the last of the jurors took their seats. She tucked her hands beneath the table and wiped her sweaty palms down the length of her skirt. Three days of deliberation had seemed like an eternity.
The victim, a slight young woman, sat pale and rigid beside her parents in the gallery seats behind the barrier. Elizabeth glanced back at the family and offered an encouraging smile. The poor girl looked as if she might be sick.
The man accused of sexually assaulting her could just as easily have been mistaken for a church pastor, or a high school teacher, or an insurance adjustor instead of what he was—someone who had lured a sixteen-year-old girl into his car. His blonde hair was dusted through with threads of gray and his sky-blue eyes held no hint of the darkness Elizabeth knew lurked inside the man’s black heart.
Justice.
She couldn’t change what had happened to this girl on the night she was attacked, but bringing the man accused of her rape to justice was something Elizabeth could do.
"Has the jury reached a verdict?" the judge asked.
The jury foreman rose. He was a gaunt-looking man who ran a hardware store. Good, middle-class stock with two daughters in high school. He was the kind of man she’d hoped for—the kind of man who could imagine the hell the victim and her family were experiencing. Tonight, he would go home and hug his children tight, but this afternoon, he stood tall and grave as he read the verdict...
We hope you are enjoying the book so far. To continue reading...
Copyright © 2024 All Rights Reserved
Please log in to recommend or discuss...
